Won't Last Forever
by Professor Monty Corndog
Summary: The Aquabats haven't been a band in five years, ever since Crash died. Jimmy, after adjusting to "normal" life (along with all of his remaining bandmates), decides it's time for a re-union, and things escalate quickly.
1. Chapter 1

_Why am I lying here?_  
It's the first time you've really thought about it in a while, having somewhat convinced yourself that you do actually need sleep, and a bed, and a normal apartment like everyone else. Of course, it brings up further questions of why you would possibly need an alarm clock and why you have a plug in the back of your neck, but you tend to ignore that stuff in favour of your less complicated imaginary life. So you lie there, in bed, waiting for the morning alarm to go off and staring at the ceiling, your recharge completing about an hour ago._  
It's been so long, but today's the day._  
Five years. Five years since The Aquabats lost everything – first Crash, then the Battletram… And with their friend and ride gone, the friendship and the respect left too, replaced by menial day jobs and the odd awkward text message. For the most part, you only have a vague idea of what the remaining Aquabats are doing any more, only aware of Ricky and the Commander's new jobs, and with no clue as to what happened to Eaglebones.  
Click._  
Ah, there he is._  
"Good morning, this is your wake-up call…"  
When the radio switches on for your 6:00am start, you're just in time to catch the beginning of your favourite show. The music isn't really your thing, but you leave it on all morning anyway, making your apartment feel more alive and less like an empty living space. It does help that the daily sound of his voice reassures you, not only because it makes everything feel like it used to, but because hearing the Commander lets you know he's still doing okay, even in his new career. It's routine at this point, but today's totally different - if you'd have known a one-word text could've brought your best friends back together again, you would've sent it years ago. You drag yourself out of bed, listening to your old leader babble on with a new caller, and check your cell to make sure you didn't imagine the whole thing.  
"Reunion?"  
Nope, still there. That one, stupid text message, with one reply of only a meeting place, date, and time. Everything is going ahead as planned. No work today – the first time you've taken a day off sick in your entire life – rejecting the notion of another day stuck behind a desk making spread sheets or stuck under one repairing someone else's computer. Of course, you have no idea what to wear to meet the Commander off the train when he's finished with _his_ morning, staring at a wardrobe full of cotton shirts and silk ties and longing for the chance to wear an incredibly tight, warm, uncomfortable piece of neoprene again. If only it were that simple. But you put on your normal, boring clothes, ignore your normal, boring briefcase, and sit on your bed, covering your silver metallic hands with latex, skin-coloured gloves to hide your true self behind a veil of humanity.  
"Well, that's a _great_ song request," chatters the Commander from your nightstand. "But first, I'm gonna play something a little different this morning… Because today seems like it's gonna be one of those days."  
And as the radio segues into the first song of the morning, you just sit there and stare at your own reflection, a sinking feeling in your stomach making you feel like you just want to crawl back under the sheets again as "Super Rad!" blares from next to your pillow.

Leaving the house today, you walk past 3 cases near the door, one of them clearly used but cared for, one of them battered around the edges, and one of them covered in dust. The briefcase stays where it was placed last night, and the saxophone case stays where it was placed days ago. As for the other case… It hasn't been shifted in an excruciatingly long time. But you're ignoring all three, heading out and getting the train in your suit and tie, while most of the businessmen around you start to don coats and hats as the weather gets harsher. As always, the train is full of all types of commuters, and you still don't get a seat despite catching it later today. You _did_ have one, but you gave it to a little kid instead, smiling awkwardly when he gives you an enormous grin, telling you all about how he's going to school for the first time on his own. It's a nice distraction from the growing feeling of dread and nervousness, and you entertain him and all of his questions before he gets off. Tapping your foot increasingly fast, you're now left alone with your thoughts in the train carriage, ignoring the people around you - the distance between you and your best friend getting smaller as your anxiety grows ever larger.

You feel bad that your first thought is about how he looks older, especially considering he's definitely lost some weight and had a haircut. It's not a _bad _thing that he looks older, that's for sure. The smile lines that crease up on his face when his expressions change show off a history of looking a lot happier than he does right now, and you wish in a way that you looked older, too. It makes you feel worse that you look exactly the same as you did 5 years previous, something that he's already commented on by the time you've sat down in the train station café for coffee.  
"I dunno," he mumbles, a volume level that you didn't know existed for someone who used to be so loud and boisterous. "I dunno what happened to Ricky, man. I'm pretty sure Hollywood ate him."  
He zips up his hoodie further, tapping a somewhat familiar tune on the side of his paper cup, and stares at you expectantly. It takes you a minute of just gawking at his face before you actually respond, thinking about how different he looks without a mask… Or a moustache.  
"Oh, sorry," you choke, trying to apologise for being lost in your own little world. "Yeah, he's… Not doing too badly for himself, I guess? I heard he became a personal trainer, but I didn't hear about the… Hollywood stuff."  
"Well, he's got a buttload of money 'cause he's working with all these celebrities. Started his own gym, or somethin'."  
The Commander rolls his eyes, and for a moment you see his old self bubbling to the top as he smirks derisively. He lifts his cup to his mouth, and there's another awkward silence between you, the whole area seemingly stifled by your nervousness despite how busy the station is. But now he's holding your gaze as you look at him with a stare more mournful than you intended.  
"I missed seeing you," he says at last, with a small downward twitch of his eyebrows as he taps the cup back down to the table. There seems to be relief in his voice, as if he needed to get it off his chest. "Might as well say it now. I missed you."  
You're not sure how to feel about this. He never used to be one for voicing his opinions – any positive ones about you, anyway. Of course, he also used to yell everything he wanted to say and had no concept of personal space, so the man sitting before you now is more than a little different from the one you once knew. But it's refreshing, albeit shocking.  
"I missed you too," you reply, extremely quietly, and he's already speaking again by the time you've got the last syllable out. It's a lot louder this time as he leans forward, his forehead resting against his hand as he stares into the coffee cup.  
"I miss Crash. Like…"  
You can hear a crack in his voice, and when he looks up at you, you can see the cracks in this visage of a confident and chatty radio DJ, too. From this angle, the bags under his eyes are a lot more prominent – he looks exhausted as he tells you about how much he blames himself.  
"It's not your—"  
"For Pete's _sake_, Jimmy!" he barks, leaning back in the chair and pulling away from you. "It _is_ my fault. I just… I need to accept that. If I'd not _annoyed_ him so much…"  
You slam your hands down in frustration on the flimsy plastic table with a loud thud, the metal not as muffled as you'd expected it to be through your latex hands. He looks up at you, wide-eyed in shock, as do several of the other people around you as you glare back at him.  
"You had _no idea_ that him growing like that when he got mad would affect his health so much. None of us did, Commander. My _scans_ didn't even say anything about it, how were _you_ going to know?!"  
It's starting to seem like a bad idea - you guys meeting up again - you think. You're already snapping at each other about things that were not only out of your control, but that you've already yelled at each other enough to warrant barely talking for half a decade. But now your old friend is grinning - the sort of sly, mischievous grin that you've secretly been missing, despite it having a history of worrying you for all the right reasons.  
"I've not been called 'Commander' in way too long," he confesses, getting up out of his seat and expecting you to follow: which, naturally, you do. "I'm starting to think this was a good idea."  
That smile shows no sign of dwindling as the pair of you head out onto the street, the human's cheeks and nose tinged red from the cold, and his smile lines showing off just how they got there.  
"Come on. Let's go get Eaglebones, he's expecting us."


	2. Chapter 2

You have to admit, the whole place seems appropriate from the outside, if not a little dead at this time in the morning. Guitars loom over you from all sides as you pass through the front door to the music store, getting momentarily distracted and staring through the glass at all of the instruments. The Commander brings you back up to speed when the heel of his Converse presses firmly into your toes through your polished black shoes, and you bump into the back of him as he stops dead in the entryway. Looking over his shoulder, you try and see why he now appears to be recoiling, and it becomes apparent that the younger man behind the counter tried to shoot you in the face with a laser the last time he saw you.  
"What?" grumbles Eaglebones' older brother, someone you weren't really expecting to see today, in all honesty. "What are you _staring_ at?"  
Eagleclaw sits there, now scowling at you as he scrapes against his namesake with a large metal file, making an awful sound.  
"Are you gonna _buy_ something, or are you just gonna stand there? If you've come to make fun of me again, I'll kick you out," he snaps, and it dawns on you that he has no idea who you are out of costume, even if you look exactly the same.  
"We're… We're here to see your brother," confesses the Commander, while you just keep staring at Eagleclaw. Now he's rolling his eyes and huffing; he gets out of his seat with deliberately overdramatic effort, smacking the file against the desk, and heads into what appears to be the back room.  
"Bones!" he shrieks, and it really _is _a shriek – a normal, human yell, but with an undercurrent that sounds like the cry of a bird of prey. Like a hawk, you suppose. "Some people wanna see you!"  
Another shriek comes back, the bird call more audible through the door as the human speech is muffled, followed by the gentle 'thud' of feet coming down stairs. When Eaglebones appears from behind the door, chattering with his brother quietly, both you and the Commander are completely dumbstruck again. He looks so _different,_ and it's not just because he's wearing a polo shirt and nametag instead of his costume. His once wild hair is now even wilder, curlier and longer, draped past his shoulders. But more than that, the edges of it around his ears and forehead aren't actually hair at all – there's feathers growing there, growing back from his face into the tangled mess and pushing it out of his eyes. They're mottled brown and look extremely soft, and you wonder why they weren't there before, until you realise you're being weird and staring at someone's face for too long for the third time already today.  
"Uh, hey," he says, awkwardly waving at the pair of you, and the Commander waves back, smirking.  
"It's good to see you," you blurt out, smiling more keenly than you'd anticipated, and then cringing when you realise how dumb you sound. But Eaglebones doesn't care, a smile creeping onto his face too as he waves a hand at the pair of you again, now gesturing for you both to come through the door.  
"Do you guys _own_ this place?" you find yourself asking as you follow Bones up the stairs, and he nods.  
"Jeez, you really _are_ out of the loop," sighs MCBC, unintentionally burying you in guilt.  
"It's alright," Bones retorts, opening the door at the top of the stairs and leading the pair of you into his apartment. "I've not seen _you_ in _three_ years either, Commander. And sort of, Jimmy – me and my bro help to run stuff, anyway. My dad owns it, but he's not here at the moment. We kinda… _Reconnected _after the band split."  
You're just watching the back of his neck and more feathers as he mentions his dad, and it's strange to think that more of this family exists. It makes you a little nervous in fact, when you consider what the Falconhawk brothers' father must look like in reference to them. And then you look around the room - around an apartment full of weaved wicker furniture, large houseplants, and what appears to be more guitars than downstairs. There are feathered dream-catchers and other bizarre items you presume are 'spiritual' things hung on the walls, but you daren't ask._  
Yeah_, you think. _This is definitely their house._

The Commander's still being bizarrely quiet as the ex-guitarist explains to you that the pair of them met up exactly three years ago for the two-year anniversary of Crash's death, and promised they'd meet up again for the fifth. It makes you feel awful to know that it was only those two back then, and not you and Ricky as well, because you'd been rejecting their calls. In your own defence, you think about what a rough time you were having, and convince yourself that going out to his grave site when you struggled to not lie in bed all day and hate everything would be a bad idea. He goes on to tell you about coming back home, about him and his brother reconciling after having such a feud – it's clear by the way he tells it that Eaglebones has had some crisis about his own mortality. He's using the phrase "life's too short" far too much, and his whole demeanour seems a lot less hot-headed and reckless than he used to. Just like seeing the Commander being so humble, it throws you off how much they've changed, but you direct the conversation towards a change you feel less strange talking about.  
"Oh, that?" smirks Bones. "Yeah, well… They used to grow like that, and I'd – I'd pluck them out, because I thought all of you guys would make fun of me, and I _hated_ them."  
There's a pause, and you can see him looking at his own feathers out of the corner of his eye, with what appears to be a mock-disgust.  
"But, I mean, I don't really care anymore. We _own_ this place and we _all _look like this. And honestly, I don't think I've got anything to be ashamed of."  
He smiles, and when you look over at the silent figure of your leader, he's smiling, too – an admirable look that nearly matches the other man's pride.  
"Anyway," starts up the Commander after another awkward pause in the conversation as you look around the room. "We, ah, we were gonna go out to his grave, if that's cool."  
It takes you a minute to realise that this is directed at you, but you nod eagerly when you see the pair of them watching you, obviously not knowing what you're going to think of it after you rejected their reaching out to you last time.  
"Of course," you reply, and the other two are already pulling themselves out of the wicker seats, the Bat Commander a lot less gracefully than your birdlike friend.  
"I actually have a ride this time," chuckles Eaglebones, and you feel a little left out when they both start laughing over something you've missed… As if you could feel any _worse_ for ignoring them. "We can take the van."

The ride out into the desert is a quiet one, but not because of any awkwardness any more. In fact, it's sort of comfortable, and you feel a lot more at home in silence with these two than you have done in any long conversation when they weren't there. As Eaglebones drives the three of you away, the cityscape trails off, mutating into small towns, smaller and smaller, and then nothing but cacti and tumbleweeds on a dead landscape. It's apt, you think, for the circumstances. When Crash passed away – not even during a battle, but afterwards, when you were all exhausted – that energy never seemed to come back. Maybe that was why you all started yelling so much, but Crash's then-unknown sickness left him when he went peacefully; infecting the rest of you with a bitterness you'd never known before. The Commander, once so full of life, didn't say a word for an excruciatingly long time. Ricky didn't take long to leave, and you and Eaglebones tried to hold the band together for as long as possible with next to no luck. Perhaps the long period of silence was a good thing, for the hostility at least seems to have dissipated, leaving the remnants of a friendship and ghosts of memories that fill your heads when you look at each other's faces, reminding you gently of everything you've lost. You bump your forehead against the window, looking out at the horizon, and that's when Eaglebones' hand-me-down van comes to a shuddering halt; the Commander leaning over the dashboard in the front seat to get a better look.  
"What the…"  
Out on the road in front of you, parked to the side, is a black car with matching tinted windows. It looks a lot fancier than your current ride, but you'd honestly have no idea what it was doing out here even if it was a crummy-looking 4x4. After a moment's staring in confusion, the three of you watch as a man comes back to the car – he's well dressed, and built to fill out his suit nicely, with the desert sand kicking up around his feet and marking his black slacks. When he turns to you, he stops dead, and a smile appears behind black sunglasses. Then, a grin. A big, white grin of perfectly straight teeth. It takes a minute of this presumably respectable figure running towards you, laughing with the innocence and eagerness of a child and pulling his expensive-looking sunglasses off his face before you realise exactly who you're looking at.  
"Oh man. It _is,_" starts the Commander, his voice getting louder as his expression changes to one of utter disbelief. "That's _Ricky._"  
By the time he's in front of the van, waving with both arms and grinning like a lunatic, all three of you are howling with laughter. You were wrong – he's not changed a bit.


	3. Chapter 3

It doesn't take long before the arguing starts. Of course, you and Eaglebones just stand around, looking awkwardly at each other and occasionally opening your mouths as if you're about to say something. No sound ever comes out. The Commander and Ricky stopped walking off the road with you a few paces back, and now they're just yelling at each other, five years of frustration spilling out into a shouting match that makes you glad you're in the middle of nowhere. It started as something simple – the pair of them making backhanded comments about each other's new jobs – but by now it's turning incredibly spiteful, to the point where it's making you genuinely uncomfortable. The fact that you keep hearing Crash's name is making it far worse, and you can hear your bird-like friend grinding his teeth next to you; something you've not heard in quite a while, but you generally used to associate with him being annoyed.  
_Still got the same habits,_ you think.  
You turn to look at him for a moment – it's only a brief second, as when you turn away, you catch sight of Ricky practically diving on the Commander, tackling him to the ground in a moment of surprise and punching him square in the face. None of you know what to do, but Eaglebones and Ricky are yelling indiscriminately, the Commander's kicking up dust as he tries to get away, and it takes a minute for you to register your own actions before you've ran back to meet them and grabbed Ricky by the collar of his shirt, pulling him back up as he struggles. He's still yelling as he forces himself away from you before storming off, but you've already let him go and are bending down to hear the Commander's mumbling properly.  
"It's okay," he sputters, now leaning over on all fours, his once blue hoodie covered in dirt. "I totally deserved that. Went too far." He adds a noise that sounds like 'pfft', and when you lean closer, you notice that there's blood pouring from his nose and across his lips, staining the sand red below him.  
"No, no it _isn't_," you snap, already letting him go to chase after Ricky as he stomps off. "I don't care _what _you said, he has _no right_ to—"  
"_No!_" Eaglebones screeches, making all three of you stop and turn to look at him. "Do you know what really _isn't _okay? The fact that you guys are fighting – hell, even _yelling _– today! We are here to honour a dead man. A dead _friend." _He's staring at all 3 of you intensely, but you find you can't meet his eyes, and it's not just because he's glaring. "Do you really think Crash would be okay with you guys _punching each other_, if he was here? Would he be happy with you yelling _about him_ at each other?"  
The sound of the wind turning the ground beneath your feet is the only reply Bones gets, the rest of you now looking at each other painfully. It's like a punch in the gut, and you can't help feeling incredibly petty and insensitive for joining in on the bickering. Ricky, after a moment's hesitation, makes his way back over to you and immediately helps the Commander back to his feet, mumbling an apology to him.  
"S'okay," the Commander reassures him, wiping blood across his face with his sleeve in an attempt to stop his nosebleed. "Although… Go a little easier on me in future. Your right hook's gotten a lot better."  
You find yourself laughing, partially in relief, and they both start too – Eaglebones smiles nervously, looking somewhat embarrassed with the way he lost it. You return to walking together again, everyone following the Commander and looking a lot worse for wear.

Your clothes are discoloured, dirty, and in the Commander's case blood-stained, but there's still something strangely right about it when you sit together at Crash's grave. Not pleasant, of course, and you're all completely silent for a while. Bones runs his hand across the stone and wipes away a layer of dust, saying softly about how the band's all together now. And it's true, it's so true – it was great to see the Commander again after such a painfully long absence, and it was just as great to see Eaglebones and Ricky; you had no idea if they were okay, after all, and to see them doing so well settles you. But you still weren't a whole, even surrounded by your old friends. Because the big guy, the safety net, the over-protective puppy is never coming back. It still hurts, and you think it always will. Sometimes people say stuff about moving on, and you tried every trick in the book – including reading a lot of actual books on the subject – to understand the idea behind grieving and loss. It's a new subject to you in a way, after all. But try as you might to put these methods and apparent psychological facts to the test, nothing ever seems to come of it. You hope that it's just a robotic malfunction; that your human friends will adjust better to life without him and move on. But it's as if it was forced into your core programming to see Crash as a member of your little family here, and nothing will ever change that. No matter what happened, or what happens, Crash is family even if he's gone. They know that too, though, and you're starting to doubt your previous hypothesis as you notice how much it's hurting them all over again. Even just Eaglebones mentioning you all being together knocks your theory out of the window, and makes you realise that grief is a lot harder to deal with than the other humans said it was. Maybe this is because the other humans never had a friendship as strong, you think. Maybe they didn't know what it was like to have a big lug of a friend who demanded bedtime stories and always made you smile. A friend who would be strangely quiet with you all day and then present you with his new pride and joy, a portrait of you, lovingly adorned in poster paints. Some of the books you read said that you need to stop thinking about the person as much in the first place and that it'd help, but by God, you refuse to ever throw that painting away. You're glad you live on your own in some small way; because you think it'd be hard to explain the framed, wobbly painting of a blue robot up on your wall, the only piece of art in your apartment.

The Commander, standing in front of the gravestone you engraved with the tip of your finger, decides on some parting words as you all get up to leave with no idea of how much time has passed. It's definitely been more than a couple of hours of you all sat around, swapping stories and being nostalgic. He stammers and fills the one-sided conversation with a lot of "uhhs" and slowing down; something you know wouldn't happen if Crash was actually able to talk back, recalling the hours they spent discussing absolutely nothing. But the content of what he's saying doesn't matter, because the message behind it is emanating from him entirely. He stands there, looking down at that stone, and you see the history they had. The faltering in his voice and the awkwardness lets you know that he feels sort of dumb saying it, but finds it necessary all the same. The way he lowers his head and presses against his own fingers a sure sign of how much it's damaged his feelings. The Commander hides it all away behind a half-hearted smile, waving you over to follow him back to the roadside as he walks away, leaving the memories and melancholy in the dust with your dear friend.

In an awkward moment of discussion that shows off how much you've all changed and lost what you know about each other, the four of you try and decide what to do after your little 'reunion get-together', not yet wanting to separate for an unknown amount of time again.  
"You guys can come back to mine," offers Ricky, with a slight shrug that wrinkles up the sleeves of his blazer and shows off just how filthy half of it is. "I know you've not seen me in like, forever, so we could, y'know, catch up properly?"  
The rest of you nod keenly, Eaglebones scratching at the root of the feathers on his face as he offers to follow Ricky's car and take you and the Commander in the van again. You can't help but notice how oddly different Ricky's voice sounds now that he's got his braces off. Although it might also be because he seems a lot more self-assured and confident now, too – maybe it was the slight growth spurt he's had, or the ability to get a good tailor. Either way, you eventually managed to find common ground and stop talking so nervously, splitting up from Ricky to pile back in with Bones and finding the drive out of the desert a lot more pleasant than the one there. You can't really explain that, other than a subconscious feeling that you actually have a purpose and something to do again.

Coming back into the city again feels strange, as if that bustling world that held you for the past five years was now alien to you within a day. It's loud, and busy, and daunting compared to the almost complete silence you spent hours in before – that quiet and peace made you feel more welcome and at home, even out in a land of nothingness. You suppose that just shows how much you've missed the other Aquabats, but you're not telling them _that_ again today. Bones struggles with the manual drive on the van, and you and the Commander laugh at his utter failure to drive stick in a vehicle that looks like it'd have trouble even if you were an expert.  
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles sarcastically, rolling his eyes at you. "Go ahead, laugh it up. It's not like this is my hunk o' junk anyway."  
You continue to mock him for the van, before conversation turns to the Battletram, the three of you start talking about it as if it were a life-long friend. Truth be told, it sort of was, and you honour it as such by telling each other stories about the more bizarre antics that happened within its walls and laughing so hard you shake the seats. But after a few minutes of this to pass the time, everything seems to slow down in one crystallising moment. Your ears ring far more than you thought they actually could, and every other sound seems to disappear as the noise around you forms a crescendo of nothingness. There's an earth-shattering slam that you can feel, at least, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping across metal and concrete as your hearing returns a minute later. By the time you've adjusted to your now rather uncomfortable seating position – your head forced into the back of the Commander's headrest – you've finally realised what's happened. That you'd just been screaming as another car, one far more large and with more protection than an egg carton (unlike yours), hurtled into the driver's side as it rolled across the intersection, clearly out of control. There's a hissing noise you don't understand from the van, and the ringing doesn't subside at all. Imagining it for a minute as you move, you figure that all of your systems firing off and overloading in the way that they did wouldn't be too far off from how humans feel shock – which explains why the Commander is just sat there, trembling and hyperventilating. You go to reassure him, leaning forward between the seats to tell him that it's gonna be okay, before you realise that Eaglebones is face down against the steering wheel.  
This time, the shock feels a lot more human.


	4. Chapter 4

The Commander's staring at his hands and breathing far heavier than you think he should be, but you're not really paying attention to him. Instead, you're focused on Eaglebones, who you thought had just smashed his head open but is now getting out of the van to inspect the side of it, muttering about how his dad is going to kill him. Ricky has parked up properly and dashed over, too, and the two of them are having a conversation outside that seems appropriately panicked. You don't know what's going on really, still quite dazed about it actually happening, but you decide to focus on the human sat with you instead, worried about your best friend's wellbeing.  
"You okay, buddy?" you ask, leaning around his seat.  
"I put my arm out."  
"What?"  
"I put my arm out to stop Eaglebones slamming into his seatbelt or anything. He'd break something."  
"That's what happened, huh?"  
"He just bumped his head, wasn't that hard at all."  
You nod, completely relieved – you weren't really focused on all of the details when the van got smashed into. All the same, you can't shake the feeling that something's still wrong, judging by the way the Commander is acting. He leans back in the seat, but it's hardly relaxed: his posture is strange and awkward. But you still can't see him properly, and you're struggling with your seatbelt, so you fight with it a minute longer and get out of the van, heading to the front seat and opening his door. He still just sits there, so oddly robotic that it makes you uncomfortable (even _you_ don't look like _that_), and you find yourself having to undo his seatbelt for him and help him out of the chair, practically lifting him up and supporting him.  
"It feels weird," he confesses, and you have no idea what he's talking about until he stands in front of you properly and you notice how much his shoulder is drooping on one side.  
"Don't look at it," you snap at him.  
"What—"  
"_Don't._"  
You're a lot more aggressive than you'd intended in enforcing this, but you're glad – you put your arm around him, half in his face so that he can't turn his head properly, and he leans against you as if he has no choice in the matter, practically falling over.  
"Ricky? Get your car, we need to go."  
It sounds urgent when you call to him, you know. And the Commander clearly does, too, as now he's struggling and trying to get away from you to get a good look. He yanks away, his arm slack and down by his side, unmoving, and notices the bone sticking out at the top of his shoulder, making a weird bump in his jacket. Annoyed with the fact that you didn't anticipate it, you grab him quickly as his legs buckle and he collapses in shock, thinking to yourself that your penance for not keeping him away would be trying to get the unconscious Commander into the back of the car.

The jingle of Ricky tossing his car keys from one hand to the other, mixed with the beeps of hospital equipment, is starting to get on your nerves. You decide against saying anything to him though, the pair of you sat alone in the waiting room – he's staring off into space, and you feel that letting him just do his own thing would be the right course of action, as opposed to complaining at him.  
"You know," he starts after a long period of silence, making you jump slightly. "Today has kinda sucked, but it's kinda good, too."  
Nodding encouragingly, you try and get him to explain himself. But bizarrely, you're already agreeing.  
"I thought… I dunno. I missed you guys, but I thought seeing you again would mess me up."  
Ricky sighs, stopping fiddling with his keys and holding them tightly, hands practically balling into fists. It doesn't take long before you notice he's starting to cry, either, but you don't know what to do about it.  
"I just… I can't look at you guys and not think about Crash," he continues, voice trembling. "It still hurts, I – I hear the Commander on the radio sometimes in the gym and yet I'm not thinking about him, I'm thinking about _Crash_. I walk past Bones' store, but when I see _him_, it's just…"  
He's lost it, you can tell. Ricky just drops his head, arms resting against his knees as he leans forward in his chair, people around you looking over at him as he cries without holding back, like a child. Nervously, slowly, you put an arm around him and in an instant find him hugging you tightly, head buried against your chest, and openly sobbing as if he has no control of it. The pair of you just sit together like that for a while, and you hug him back, suddenly not caring about the perceptions of those around you.  
_For God's sake,_ you think, _he's still just a kid after all this time._  
No amount of constantly chattering on a cell phone, new reputation and nice clothing is gonna hide the fact that Ricky is still just a boy who needs you, needs his family. Needed _all of you_, and that's why it's hit him so hard. Bones appears from around the corner, looking at the pair of you huddled together as Ricky dampens the front of your shirt, and just shrugs as if it's to be expected. In a way, you suppose it is.  
"He's fine," huffs Eaglebones as he comes closer, waiting for the pair of you to get up. "He dislocated his shoulder and he's being a gigantic baby about it. The doctor put it back in with like, no problem."  
You can't help but chuckle slightly, and neither can Ricky as he pulls away from you, sniffling. Both of you follow Eaglebones through the polished white corridor, leaving a bunch of incredibly confused civilians behind you.

"Why is _everything bad ever_ happening to me today?" cries the Commander, rubbing the top of his arm, and you can see Ricky putting his hands on his hips out of the corner of your eye. At least his complete lack of indoor voice and fondness for being overly dramatic lets you know he's not feeling out of sorts any more.  
"It's _fine_," he tells him, laughing, and Eaglebones nods, copying his stance. The Commander frowns at them both, his nose scrunching up, before he points a finger accusingly at the nametag on the guitarist's shirt.  
"Yeah, well, _you_ owe me one," he sputters.  
"I know," replies Bones almost immediately, somewhat surprising him with his utter seriousness. "Pretty sure you saved my life."  
There's a strange, stunned silence in the hospital room for a minute, and the pair of them just keep staring at each other. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Commander opens his arms out wide and rolls his eyes melodramatically as if it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever done – but Bones gets it immediately, lunging forward, and for a moment you're scared he's gonna get punched in the face for the second time today. He hugs him tightly, and you can see for a second a twitch on the Commander's face that lets you know it's probably a bit too hard considering everything he's gone through today. Either way, it's worth it and you know it. Ricky's joining in now, tearing up again, and MCBC has unintentionally started a group hug – you couldn't keep out, either. Today has been horrible, and wonderful, and everything you missed for so long. Your entire world has been flipped all around again, and you never want it to go back. Bones is the first one to stop it, and you're surprised by this considering his initial reaction… Then you realise there's another figure in the doorway, arms folded, watching you all hugging each other with a bemused look on his face. The sunglasses and the fact that he's wearing a dressing gown out in public don't really help you determine a likeness, but thanks to your friend you realise who it is soon enough.  
"Uh, hi, Dad," Eaglebones says so nervously it's practically a squeak, his feathers prickling out more, puffing out around his face slightly.  
"Don't start about the van," he says immediately, removing the glasses and showing a warm expression beneath that outer layer of bizarre intimidation. You have to admit, despite his lanky frame and apparent lack of understanding about what types of clothes are socially acceptable, he could look pretty threatening. "It was a piece of crap anyway. I'm just glad you and your friends are safe."  
Bones is beaming, and as you break up the rest of the hug, he walks over to the other man – who walks straight past him, clasping hands with the Commander in a firm handshake.  
"Condor Falconhawk," he states coolly, "Nice to finally meet you."  
You can see a grin appear on his face, and you notice that his tooth is still black, wondering how you missed it before.  
"MC Bat Commander," he replies, booming and full of pride. "I hate hospitals. You guys wanna get out of here already?"


	5. Chapter 5

Sitting on the couch in the Falconhawk family's apartment is somewhat comforting, even if it is the most uncomfortable piece of furniture you've ever come into contact with. Now that you can look around, your visit a little less rushed than the first time you set foot above the store, you realise exactly why Eaglebones likes it so much here. Plants surround most of the room, making the place seem a lot smaller, but it's not claustrophobic - it's safe. Safe, very warm, and full of sentimental items… No_ wonder_ Condor was chiding his son for never leaving the place on the way back. Ricky agreed he'd rather head back here than back home, and Bones seemed anxious to, as the Commander put it, "return to his nest" after having such a fright earlier. Now he's sat next to you, burying himself into the couch and hugging a pillow tightly to his chest, staring at the mugs on the table as you and Ricky chatter about anything and everything over coffee. The Commander's stood with Condor in the kitchen, their extremely raucous laughter echoing through the whole building. After a few minutes of trying to keep talking over their obnoxious noise, you remove yourself from the weaved furniture and head in to meet them, just as Mr. Falconhawk starts to leave.  
"I guess that's what you get, being a dad," he observes, shrugging. You're curious at how well they've hit it off, considering how different they are.  
"Yeah, tell me about it," replies the Commander with a grin, making you laugh, albeit even more curious.  
"_You_ can hardly talk," you say, entering the conversation as the other man leaves, "How would _you_ know? I mean, I know Ricky's pretty childish, but…"  
Your question isn't answered, and the smile seems to drop off MCBC's face. And then it drops off of your face as a result, and your judgement is telling you something you never would've imagined. You sort of want to drop the subject, but you can't help it all the same, stuck in another situation where you wish you'd just kept your mouth shut. He doesn't say a word, instead removing a tattered and clearly imitation leather wallet from his pocket, and a slight smile begins to appear again. But it's different now; it's not the amused look he had earlier - it's a wistful look that you've never seen much of on him before as he swings the wallet open and hands you a photograph. You hold it so delicately between your steel fingers, worried that a slight bend could crumble the whole thing to nothingness, and you stare at it in disbelief.  
"She's three," is all he says, watching your face and apparently trying to gauge your reaction. You only catch a glimpse of this look before you're staring down at the tiny picture again, a little girl in a flowery dress grinning back at you. The colours on it aren't great, but her vibrancy shines through nonetheless, and you can't help but think of how much she looks like him. Maybe it's the mischievous smile, or the way she's got dirt and Band-Aids on her knees and is holding a worm up to the camera – you're not sure.  
"She'll be four in a couple months."  
You nod slightly, handing it back to him, and he practically snatches it out of your fingers in a gesture of overprotectiveness, sliding it back into his wallet and hiding it away.  
"I got her a bike for her birthday," he laughs, sounding like he's about to fall to pieces.  
"So, are you…?" is all you manage to ask, but somehow he knows, preferring to look out of the kitchen window at the doves congregating on the balcony instead of at your face.  
"Me and her mom don't really… Know each other anymore, if that's what you mean. I see her once a month if I'm lucky."  
Suddenly, the comments he'd made to Eaglebones earlier about not being able to afford his own car make sense, the way he said that he made enough money but it "wasn't for him". You're still nodding slowly, trying to deal with this revelation and put all of the pieces together, when the Commander punches you in the shoulder and walks past you out of the kitchen, cheerfully yelling to Ricky about how he apparently has a dumb haircut.

Somehow - and you _really_ don't know how it happened - when the four of you are left alone in the apartment, you all begin singing. It's completely ridiculous, and for a while you just sit tapping your foot as the three of them holler and wail along to music on the TV, Condor regretfully having left Bones with the remote. Inevitably, the Commander snatched it right off him, which would be funny to you if you weren't still utterly lost in thought at the idea of him having a daughter. It just won't sink in, the notion of him as a dad. Although, neither will the thoughts about the child's mother. Who is she? What's she like? _What happened between them?_  
You try and forget about it, tuning it out and paying more attention to the noise around you than usual, ending up joining their singing to various awfully cheesy pop songs.  
"Man, how d'you even know the _words_ to this?" chuckles MCBC, shaking his head at you. "Doesn't seem like your sort of thing."  
Ricky laughs too, nodding quickly in agreement.  
"Yeah, Jimmy, what the heck? You used to roll your eyes at us and leave the _room _over this stuff."  
"I hear it a lot now," you retort, somewhat offended. "Doesn't mean I like it – I just hear it on the radio a lot."  
The smile you give the Commander at the end of your confession makes him stick his tongue out and act out a mock-gagging sound, before punching you lightly in the shoulder again.  
"Still a big sap, eh, robot?"  
All three of them chuckle, immediately bursting into song again, and you huff before accepting it and intentionally singing as badly as possible, joining in. You thought it was a compliment, but you suppose it might've been a little much.

After Journey comes on the TV and the whole block is treated to a loving cover of "Don't Stop Believing", complete with a capella renditions of instrumental parts, mimed guitar solos, and all-new improvised lyrics, you find yourself in a much better mood. Condor stomps back up the stairs again, standing in the doorway and watching the spectacle of it all.  
"Man, why did you guys ever stop performing?" he jibes sarcastically, but while Eaglebones finds his dad's comment funny, you notice that the Commander appears to be lost in thought. You think you'd be able to see gears turning up there if you thought they hadn't been glued up with sugar years ago.  
"He has a point," mumbles MCBC, and the rest of you look at him, partially because you can't hear him over the music, but partially because you can't believe what you're actually hearing.  
"What?" you ask, the only one who seems brave enough to open your mouth. Ricky, taking the remote out of the Commander's hand, puts the TV on mute.  
"Condor-dude _has a point_," he repeats impatiently, as if it were obvious. "I mean, we _could_…"  
"We're getting along better now," adds Ricky, staring at the Commander with a look of excitement so intense you think he might explode.  
"One last gig," offers the Commander, seemingly thinking out loud.  
"We'd need to… To practice," you say, the first thing that comes forward from the soup of increasingly deep thought that your brain is turning into.  
"I still practice like, every day," confesses Eaglebones.  
"Well, my _voice_ ain't changing," the Commander replies. "I can still hit the same notes; you should hear me singing in the shower," he adds, making Ricky snort with laughter.  
"I still gotta drum kit in my house and play all the time… If anything, I've gotten better!"  
And, of course, you don't need practice, programmed to always do the same thing in the same way, for the most part. It was your argument in the first place, but you can feel yourself turning over to the opposing side regardless.  
"Well… What about a _bassist?_" you offer, struggling to determine whether you should even argue the point, everyone's smiles faltering as you bring up Crash. "I know it's… Not, not a good subject for any of us, but… Y'know, we _do_ need one."  
Ricky rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand, before running it back through his hair, hesitating.  
"Maybe this isn't a good idea, guys," he sighs, completely changing his tune. "It wouldn't be right to replace Crash."  
"We're _not_ replacing Crash," snaps the Commander, raising his voice. "We need a new bassist. A new _person._ Not a _replacement_. Nobody could ever replace Crash, nobody could _ever_ fill his shoes."  
There's a pause, everyone slightly stunned with how angry he's getting, and he looks over at you, not knowing what to say.  
"…Literally _and_ figuratively," you add, saving him, and lightening the mood as he sputters a laugh at your dumb joke.  
Condor's still watching you from the door, and you imagine he has no idea what he's done – he's backing up this theory with the disturbed, wide-eyed look he's giving the four of you. There's more thudding behind him, and Eagleclaw appears from the stairwell, trying to gently push past his father and looking somewhat nervous with the amount of people in his house. The Commander jumps to his feet so fast that everyone in the room visibly recoils, turning his head sharply to look at the other Falconhawk brother.  
"_You,_" is all that he says, pointing with a sinister smile on his face.  
"No," says Eaglebones, almost instinctually.  
"Bones taught you to play without trashing guitars any more, right?" The Commander practically yells, smile stretching even further.  
"_No,_" Eaglebones says again, more forcefully this time, but it's not really distinguishable as his brother says "yeah?" cluelessly at the same time. Condor chuckles, sighs slightly, and heads for the kitchen again.  
"Can you play bass?"  
"Really? _Really._"  
Eagleclaw scowls at his brother threateningly, before answering with another agreement.  
"Welcome to the band!" cries The MC Bat Commander, full of confidence, going to shake their "newest member's" hand before deciding against it and pulling his hand away. He turns to the rest of you, and you can't decide whether you want to laugh harder than you ever have done in your life, or have a complete and utter nervous breakdown.  
"Aquabats, let's go!" he yells triumphantly, arm raised high into the air, and you all get out of your seats just as rapidly as he did, as if it's second nature to you. Apparently excitement has overtaken all common sense, and you're just rolling with it.  
"Wait… Where are we _going?_" Ricky asks finally when you're already halfway down the street, Eagleclaw trailing behind you begrudgingly with no clue of what's happening, but apparently accepting his fate.  
"We're gonna go get our _uniforms_, duh!"


	6. Chapter 6

You've not been to work in two days. After all the excitement of Monday, everything has ground to a sudden halt. It was only mid-afternoon when everyone went their separate ways, Ricky offering to pick you all up again on Wednesday. In a way, it was disappointing, because everyone was so ready for life to resume as normal.  
_Normal,_ you think. _Nothing's been "normal" for five years._  
But with no trace of Trusty Dusty when you excitedly went to collect your uniforms - or, in fact, even any sign of his store - how were you to do this? It was awkward, to say the least. Everyone just sort of stood around for a while, kicking stones across an empty parking lot and looking disheveled. The Commander, who had been so giddy he was literally jumping up and down as the five of you headed down the street, quickly resumed the strange, silent melancholy you had seen from him in the morning, before you met Eaglebones. Everyone did, in fact, even though Eaglebones had been quite chipper in the first place. Ricky had tried to keep spirits up, still trying to remain his keen, childlike self, but there was something about his new-found maturity that dragged him back down with the rest of you. You didn't like that, to be honest. You liked Ricky the way he was, and to see him come back from behind a visage of business suits and sunglasses was a breath of fresh air. In a way, though, you feel like everyone probably thinks that about you, too - and it makes you feel guilty for being so quick to judge your bandmate. Lying on your couch, looking up at the ceiling as the TV blares from across the room, you're practically picking apart your own thoughts.  
_Bandmate_._ We've not been bandmates for a long time._  
You're shocked that you'd go so far as to use that word after everything, but the more you think about it, the more you realize the band never truly broke up, and a smile starts to find it's way onto your face. Sure, a lot has happened, and you've not spoken, and Crash is no longer with you, but something just isn't dampening the thought of being back up on stage - being back on the Battletram. Hell, even having everyone make fun of you. They don't feel like memories from half a decade ago, they feel like they could've happened yesterday.

But all that happened yesterday was that work left a worried call on your answerphone, and you wandered around the house, using items of the practical Ikea showroom you live in that you'd not even taken out of the box before. You don't think the TV had been on in months, and you'd certainly never used the stove. Hanging around all day in your pyjamas, you'd removed your instruments from their dusty cases and vowed that you weren't going outside all day. In fact, you still haven't - preferring to laze around and practice, even though it's totally unnecessary. Waiting. That's all it is, just waiting until the next time you can see them again. Not even Ricky on his own, or Bones, or the Commander; just all of them together in one group, encouraging each other's stupidity and giddiness. Being _there for each other_, in the most simplistic sense. To be in a room in which you can look around and see all of their faces just makes something feel right. You try and tell yourself it's because you were programmed initially this way, but you know for a fact that it's because you're so attached to them. No amount of programming caused it, either, you were just settled into a home - even if it was on wheels - with a family, same as any human would want. All you want is the same as any human would want overall, and the thought makes you sit and run it by yourself a few times.  
_Perhaps I've gotten more human,_ you think.  
You don't know if it's true. You'd like to think it is, but in a way, you wouldn't as well - you've always been like this, only now you're just realizing it more. Yes, that seems to be what it actually is: being apart from the rest of the band has given you more time to realize a lot about yourself, and embrace it properly. Even though you can act very robotic at times, you're somewhat human underneath all that; the reverse of what everyone else seems to think.

Still, the waiting is killing you, and you don't know if it's the human part of your programming or the robotic part that's making you get so angry over Ricky being late. When he'd suggested that he'd pick you up early in the morning, both you and the Commander had looked very enthusiastic. And then he clarified that he meant around 10am, and neither of you could hold in your laughter, slapping each other on the back and ganging up on him in the knowledge that you _knew_ what a true early start was. He looked embarrassed, but stood his ground, so now you have to wait until ridiculously late until you can see them again, and you're placing the blame for that solely on him. It's unfair, no doubt about it, but you didn't like anyone standing between you and the 'Bats back then and you don't now… Even if it _is_ one of the 'Bats themselves that's making everything difficult. You roll over onto your side on the couch, staring at the television screen babbling to itself. Just the news, which seems to be the only thing you _will_ watch whenever you're in the presence of the TV. Sighing out loud, you wonder why you do it when you could just as easily get information from Wi-Fi networks and RSS feeds inside your head. Something about having the people on the screen talking to you instead of just text feels nice, though. It's almost sweet, the way each news channel you see in a different place talks about the same subject from an entirely different angle - it makes you remember just how different people are. Inevitably, your brain switches back to thinking of the band again. As always. There never seemed to be an opinion about anything that matched up there, and it always made you laugh. In fact, before you'd spent so long with them, you were completely neutral to pretty much every topic. Nowadays you actually feel strongly about subjects they've influenced you on, even if all of those topics are completely ridiculous. You even saved all of the gems of dubious "information" that you attained from Crash over the years. Well, you saved that information from _everyone_, but when he died, you went so far in your anguish as to delete some memories from your own files. Some things just seemed too painful after that. They still do, but it was far worse before. Still, the information you've saved doesn't make you unhappy, but rather makes you laugh and remember all the good times you had together. You have so much video saved of the pair of you, and of everyone else, and sometimes before you go to bed at night you lie there reliving old memories, giggling out loud as you watch Crash completely misinterpret a situation, or the Commander make an idiot out of himself. You imagine that's what dreams would be like, if you could have them - they're your replacement. But you know, deep down, that if you _could_ actually dream, you'd be plagued by nightmares of everything that's happened, and have a fear of the future so great you can feel anxiety welling up in your chest just imagining it. Curling up more in place, you do your best to force those thoughts to the back of your brain, considering running system calibrations and writing some code just to take your mind off it. You try and focus on the news instead, actually listening to what they're saying now. And that's when you see it, and you sit bolt upright in shock, trying to truly comprehend what the report is showing.

It's the Battletram. The honest-to-god Battletram, looking just as good as she did the day you first laid eyes on her. The newscasters are chatting idly about it on one of those "final note" reports that they do to try and lift everyone's spirits.  
_Well, it's worked here,_ you think, having to restrain yourself and resist screaming in excitement at the top of your voice.  
And then you hear the beeping and hollering from outside your living room window, and you do actually let out a small noise. Going to grab your instruments - and then remembering that they're not picking you up to get right aboard and go back to living life how you'd intended straight away, you dart back and forth in the room before settling on throwing the front door open with a huge grin, and laughing loudly.  
"We've been beepin' for like, _15 minutes_!" cries the Commander, stood in the doorway. "We thought you _wanted_ to come get your costume, clownbag!"  
He's abusing you, inevitably, and he looks pretty annoyed, but you don't even care. They're already in their rashguards - bright blue uniforms and flushed red faces, silver helmets and shiny white grins. Everything is suddenly right with the world, to the point where all of your programming seems to have just dissolved into nothing but warmth and laughter. Charging forward, you kick the door shut behind you as you dash over there faster than the rest of the band probably thought possible, grabbing the Commander and hugging him tightly.  
"Hey, Jimmy?" he asks, after a minute of making noises that sound somewhat pained. "Stop bein' a weirdo. Your big metal robo-arms are hurtin' me."  
Now the others are smirking and starting to chuckle as well, and you see out of the corner of your eye, over the Commander's shoulder as you pull away, that Eagleclaw is actually aboard, too. He looks as if he's trying to fold his arms over his chest, but it's all very awkward and nervous because of his hands clearly trying not to cut open his shirt. You turn to Eaglebones as he comes closer to the doorway, and question him as best you can.  
"Hey," you whisper. "How'd you even manage to get a uniform on him, anyway?"  
The Commander snorts with laughter, practically yanking you aboard the Tram, and Eaglebones rolls his eyes.  
"We, uh, had to put mittens on his hands," he admits, not sure whether he's looking embarrassed or finding it hilarious. You don't have to make a decision at all, sniggering just as much as MCBC did and setting the other two off, too. Eagleclaw remains in the corner, rolling his eyes at you and presumably overhearing what you'd said.  
"Can we go?" asks Ricky, practically whining. The child in him has definitely been allowed to run free once again, you only have to take one look at him to see that. "I've not actually taken this thing outta the garage since I got her all fixed up, I don't know how well she's gonna do!"  
It raises further questions as to what Ricky's been doing for five years, but you can piece it together in a way that makes you smile all the same. The assumption that Ricky bought her back from the junkyard and had her all repaired when he had enough money is one that makes you realize _they_ never truly "quit", either.  
"Well, there's one way to test that out," cries the Commander, a huge grin appearing on his face. "Jimmy? I call shotgun!"  
You're already laughing again by the time they've forced you to get changed before you can take the driver's seat. Everything's exactly as you remembered it when you remove the surplus uniform from your locker, and when they give you a moment of privacy, you look around the lab. It's not only exactly how you left it all those years ago, it's not even dusty. Ricky's kept her in such good condition, taken such care with the Tram and with everything inside it that it makes you choke up. But you decide that properly fawning over her can wait until later, because the initial re-acquainting has to be done first.

When you sit down in the driver's seat, you notice it's new, not the same worn one that you once had. In a way it's pleasant, but it bothers you, too. You can understand the logic behind reinstalling things like that, but you wish everything was_ literally_ how it had been left.  
_Oh well,_ you wonder. _Hopefully we'll break them all in again._  
Looking over at your "co-pilot" - who has never really helped with piloting much, ever - you realize that the mustache is finally back, and for some reason, it makes you irrationally happy. Almost as much as when you start up the thrusters, kicking the Battletram forward and sending the five of you rocketing off.


End file.
